Woke YMCA Peddles Social-Emotional Learning,
Indoctrination in Texas After-School Programs
By Carole Hornsby Haynes January 10, 2021
While parents have been battling hostile school boards and classrooms over Critical Race Theory, left wing activists have gained new under-the-radar access to children through YMCA sponsored after-school programs. These "family friends" afternoon sessions are teaching Social Emotional Learning (SEL) -- a socialist-style psychological conditioning of students.
Founded in London in 1844 as the Young Men’s Christian Association, the organization was in response to unhealthy social conditions arising in big cities at the end of the Industrial Revolution. Today the nonprofit organization serves more than 64 million people in 120 countries with 17.5 million in the United States. The organization’s website announces a change in their mission – from Christian principles to race-based Marxism.
“We recognize that the effects of systemic racism show up in every aspect of society, from disparities in health care and education to housing, employment and more.”
“We're on a journey to become an anti-racist, multicultural organization….to lead social change through anti-racist policies, words and actions.”
“Consistent with our mission and cause, we stand in solidarity against all manners of racism and social inequity…..we work to ensure that everyone, regardless of ability, age, cultural background, ethnicity, faith, gender, gender identity, ideology, income, national origin, race or sexual orientation, has the opportunity to reach their full potential with dignity.”
In 2020, the YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas created a new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) team that launched Racial Equity and Innovation Centers across nine Dallas YMCA locations. The initial funding of a $100,00 grant from corporate America -- Reliant -- was part of their commitment of “$1 million toward organizations and initiatives that combat racial inequities, injustice and related violence.” After-school programs have been set up on the campuses of several public school districts -- Anna, Coppell, Frisco, Irving, Midlothian, Waxahachie, and Dallas with 25 of its elementary schools as well as Catholic schools, Dallas private schools, and Uplift Charter schools.
In 2021, the YMCA of Greater Houston announced the opening of the region’s first Equity Innovation Center Powered, also with a grant from Reliant.
A review of two YMCA after-school school curriculum calendars shows that Social Emotional Learning is taught daily with identity politics thrown in….“I matter, you matter, we matter.”
Never to miss an opportunity to warp young minds with the U.N.’s agenda of environmentalism, one Thursday afternoon includes a lesson on “repair the ozone.”
Monday enrichment classes indoctrinate impressionable young children in “global awareness.” This is a standard topic in academic classes where students learn they are – first -- “citizens of the world” instead of America.
A Thursday afternoon STEM enrichment class teaches “’Love’ in Binary.” Since binary code is used in digital computers and “represents text, computer processor instructions, or any other data using a two-symbol system,” this is a strange way to describe a class. Red flags should be flying for parents since, according to an Epoch Times national survey, all SEL programs include sexuality, gender, race, racism, class, and the nuclear family.
Sanford Harmony, a social emotional learning program for pre-K-6 children, is used in the YMCA after-school program on two days each week. The Harmony website boasts a presence in 20 countries and all 50 states with 45,000 schools and districts “at no cost to schools and organizations.” Funding comes from billionaire philanthropist Thomas Denny Sanford, founder of First PREMIER Bank and PREMIER Bankcard who has vowed to die broke.
Harmony addresses the traditional five core competencies of Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), a leading SEL purveyor, but is adding a new unit structure aligned to CASEL’s updated competencies “to be more inclusive of equity and excellence.” This is a reference to CASEL’s five core “Competencies with Equity Focus” including cultural competency, diversity, inequity, equity, racial equity, and inclusive – Critical Race Theory terms.
With this new SEL structure,Harmony is sneaking Marxist ideology into academic studies including after-school curriculum. Along with the intense battle being waged against dictatorial school boards, parents now have to fight their local family YMCA.